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Denis Macshane facing 12-month ban from Commons, career “effectively over”

18 replies

ariadneoliver · 02/11/2012 12:48

labourlist.org/2012/11/denis-macshane-suspended/

He is also suspended from the Labour Party and somehow this is the fault of the BNP. Hmm

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chipstick10 · 02/11/2012 19:12

im sure if he was a tory mp this thead would already be 5 pages long

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Cozy9 · 03/11/2012 23:05

Expense fiddling scum! I'm glad he is gone, shame the people of Rotherham will just vote in whoever Labouru put before them for the byelection.

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CogitoErgoSparklers · 04/11/2012 08:14

He's been lucky to avoid a prison sentence. After the scandal of a few years' ago, it's ridiculous that the audit trail for MPs' expenses is still so unreliable and that - in the case of MPs renting off each other - the rules still seem to be ambiguous. Anyone who claims back expenses incurred in their job knows they have to submit receipts for every little item purchased and if accommodation is part of the deal, it's usually a company let, not a private arrangement.

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ariadneoliver · 04/11/2012 09:38

The police may be taking a second look at prosecution, so he may not have got off completely yet. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/9653224/MPs-expenses-Police-take-first-step-towards-charges-against-Denis-MacShane.html

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twofingerstoGideon · 04/11/2012 18:48

Chipstick FWIW I'm a leftie and abhor this kind of thing, whether the fiddling is done by a Tory or a Labour MP. I'm glad to see the back of him, glad he was caught and think his behaviour was inexcusable.
You may well find, however, that the reaction would be greater if it was another Tory scandal because it's the Tories who keep going around telling us 'we're all in this together' while continuing to line their own pockets (and those of their rich mates). So when a Tory is caught with their hand in the till the indignation is about the craven hypocrisy, as much as the dishonesty.

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TwoIfBySea · 04/11/2012 18:55

He should be facing jail, as should the other two who were doing that weird house-sharing, expense fiddling thing.

In fact anyone doing such a blatant fiddle should be done for fraud against the taxpayer. I don't mean the idiots who were just handing in every and any receipt as it was the job of the minions to do the sorting it out but those who saw the rules and didn't so much bend them as break them completely.

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grimbletart · 05/11/2012 17:14

You may well find, however, that the reaction would be greater if it was another Tory scandal because it's the Tories who keep going around telling us 'we're all in this together' while continuing to line their own pockets (and those of their rich mates).

You mean a bit like Labour when they got in in 1997 saying they not going to be sleazy like the Tories and then promptly took (and had to return) £1m from Ecclestone to delay the smoking promotion in F1? Or Mandelson failing to disclose his loan from Robinson or Ron Davidson lying about being 'robbed'on Clapham Common or Macleish failing to refund income from sub letting or Mandelson (again) having to resign over the Hinduja brother. Or the resignations over Labour party borrowing millions to fund election campaigns or the Labour party peers paid retainers and claiming to influence legislation or the cash for peerages scandal.

Both political parties promise to be better than the other lot and then turn out to be just the same..it's a competition for a race to the bottom....

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twofingerstoGideon · 07/11/2012 08:36

You mean a bit like Labour when they got in in 1997 saying they not going to be sleazy like the Tories and then promptly took (and had to return) £1m from Ecclestone to delay the smoking promotion in F1? Or Mandelson failing to disclose his loan from Robinson or Ron Davidson lying about being 'robbed'on Clapham Common or Macleish failing to refund income from sub letting or Mandelson (again) having to resign over the Hinduja brother. Or the resignations over Labour party borrowing millions to fund election campaigns or the Labour party peers paid retainers and claiming to influence legislation or the cash for peerages scandal.

Yes, exactly. I agree that they are all as corrupt as each other and that all parties have a significant number of rotten apples.

However, while Labour were doing all these things, they weren't removing benefits from the needy while pretending that 'we're all in this together'.

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meditrina · 07/11/2012 08:42

I don't see this as a party issue. You can have a rotten, dishonest MP regardless of their party allegiance.

I do think Labour should however have disavowed him by withdrawing the whip much earlier. And if he has a shred of decency (which I am beginning to doubt), he should resign so there can be a by-election and his constituents can have a representative.

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grimbletart · 07/11/2012 13:21

However, while Labour were doing all these things, they weren't removing benefits from the needy while pretending that 'we're all in this together'.

Indeed: they were busy buying votes by spending money they didn't have and operating a structural deficit (finally admitted by Ed Balls a couple of weeks ago) so that when the greedy bankers' irresponsibility brought on a crisis they had run out of any contingency money that might have put the UK in a slightly better position to face it.

I am no lifelong Tory - far from it - but it is a fact that both this Government and the Thatcher Government were voted in after Labour had made the most appalling balls-up of the economy. Result - they get to try and sweep up the shit and everyone then hates them for it. Personally, I wish Labour had got in this time so it could sweep up its own shit, except of course we would be borrowing even more money than the Tories are doing and running an even bigger deficit.

As for the needy being the target..it's not only them. It's also savers (quite often Tory voters) who have done all the right things by saving for their old age and being independent who are also being punished by seeing their life-savings dwindling in the face of rubbish interests rates, well below inflation levels. Not to mention often having to prop up the younger generation with help in house buying etc. So in that respect "we are in it all together.

The only ones who aren't are those so rich that even paying a punitive level of tax still lives them relatively well off (and these people were also kept well off by Labour - who, apparently, quite loved them when they were in power).

A plague on all politicians' houses I say.

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slug · 07/11/2012 13:56

To be fair, he didn't benefit personally from most of it. It'snot like he had his tennis court drained or a duck house built at the taxpayers expense. Instead he sent his unpaid interns away with a laptop.

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CogitoErgoSometimes · 07/11/2012 14:33

it's still theft....

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slug · 07/11/2012 15:10

Oh yes. I'm just mildly impressed that he stole to pay the unpaid interns

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orangina · 07/11/2012 15:13

twofingerstoGideon.... I LOVE your name! Smile

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Abitwobblynow · 09/01/2013 17:27

I am rather sad about this even though I dislike Labour and think his boss was a raving dangerous lunatic who should be in jail for what he has done to Britain.

David Laws (an outstanding politician) fiddled, got smacked, is in the cabinet.
Why beat up McShane.

I liked him because he advocated a law whereby men using foreign sex workers should be arrested and charged with rape. ie. they KNOW they have been trafficked, but they don't care - well, make them care. For a man to say that men should be responsible for the abuse and exploitation they pay for - well that made him pretty damn good in my eyes!

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Abitwobblynow · 09/01/2013 17:33

Personally, I wish Labour had got in this time so it could sweep up its own shit, - Grimble, I TOTALLY agree.

David Cameron must be mad, he was on a complete hiding to nothing. If he had any sense, he should have said to Britain

'I'm out this round. You voted for them, you get them to sort out the mess they made. WHEN you are prepared to hear some hard and difficult truths about life, give the Conservatives a shout and we will talk'.

[The deep reluctance of all Western politicians to talk about difficult truths is one of the main reasons we find ourselves with problems. The last people to tell it like it is? Nigel Lawson, Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit]

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Abitwobblynow · 10/01/2013 09:54

I hate all politicians, but I flipping hate Labour with an unrelenting passion. They bring their lovely fluffy caring theories about making the world a better place, and then they stuff everything up - because they are nowhere in touch with reality. The last lot should in in jail IMO, from their military moronics, spiteful uncontrolled immigration that seriously hurt the working classes, to their idiot bankrupting of this nation. Angry

From Thomas Pascoe (far more measured!):

Balls has been more irresponsible than any other Labour frontbencher.
It is the record of both man and party that must be placed before the electorate in 2015. The Conservatives need to force voters to confront the idiocy of Labour?s economic strategy, particularly the belief that economic stimulus can return Britain to growth. The country is forecast to run a net deficit of 6.9 per cent of GDP this financial year (excluding the Royal Mail pension transfer). That is one of the largest stimulus spending programmes in the world. What has it delivered? In all probability, a triple-dip recession.
Even more damagingly, Balls represents two immensely harmful ideas, both of which must be discredited if Britain is to return from the brink financially.
The first is the idea that economics is an immeasurably complex subject that submits only to the finest minds. At present, actions and ideas are presented in a way that deliberately obscures their purpose and effect. Finance thus becomes less of a discipline and more of an alchemist?s trick. Balls has a track record in this nonsense-speak which ranges from the introduction of ?neo-classical endogenous growth theory? in a speech he wrote for Gordon Brown, to last year?s talk of ?predistribution?. The effect and the intention are identical: these phrases make the nation?s finances more remote, forcing us to acknowledge Balls?s role as an expert and concede our own. From these seeds grew the debt binge that left us with a 10.1 per cent annual budget deficit in 2010/11, masked with inane words about ?smoothing out? over the cycle.
Of all the disciplines of state, economics is the most easily mastered. Every individual, household and corporation familiarises themselves with the basic rules early in their life -[what did Mrs Thatcher say?]. In the quest to maintain that governments are not bound to the law of balance that catches up with every other economic entity, the system itself has been debased. Money has been created from thin air to the extent that the next crash will itself be a result of attempting to stave off this present crash. What might have been a three-year cleansing process could now be a 20-year stagnation, largely thanks to men too clever to admit their mistakes.
Moreover, it is the attitude that Labour brought to public finances under Gordon ?n? Ed that continues to poison the well. Labour has deliberately created a client state in this country, which recognises only the right to draw on the resources of others. With rhetoric about the rich, and a dozen years of rising payments to those who would not work, Balls has helped engender in this country a spiteful, petty-minded entitlement culture. Again, the connection between money and production has been severed. Again, the damage to our prospects as a nation is incalculable.

  • Have I ever told you how much I loathe and despise the mindset of the Labour Party...? Smile
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ironman · 14/01/2013 15:58

He should be sacked, not suspended!

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